BlackBerry data center sold for $30M

Kimball Bridge site to be used as data center

ALPHARETTA, Ga. — The former site of a BlackBerry facility was purchased Feb. 24 for $30 million and will become a data center for Ascent.

Ascent, which provides comprehensive data center solutions, in partnership with TowerBrook Capital Partners, bought the 40-acre property at 4905 North Point Parkway and Kimball Bridge Road.

BlackBerry and Ascent entered into partial leasebacks for data center space at the property which will be called Ascent ATL1 Data Center. The facility is well-suited for cloud and edge deployment servers with plug and play data center space immediately available, the company said.

“The sale leaseback arrangement enables the customer to focus on its core business and provides them a partner in their data center facility operations, while at the same time allowing Ascent to bring additional high quality, purpose-built assets to market under its growing data center portfolio,” Ascent said.

Ascent also bought a data center in Toronto along with its Alpharetta purchase due to the centers’ being equipped with “significant security characteristics, concurrently maintainable infrastructure for 100 percent uptime and other site-specific features,” the company said.

Ascent CEO Phil Horstmann said the acquisition is a complement to the company’s solutions set and its ability to deliver quickly on complex customer data center challenges.

Horstmann said the company was reevaluating its real estate portfolio and operational needs.

The company’s staff put together an action plan that enabled it to execute the international transaction in a short period of time.

“We look forward to working with our customer and bringing these enterprise-grade facilities and their respective data center capabilities to market for additional tenants,” Horstmann said